Story 206 - The Prince and the Ascetics

IN a certain country there is a Prince, it is said. After the Prince became big, for the purpose of marrying him they began to visit all cities to seek an unpolluted Princess. Because they did not meet with one according to the Prince’s thought, he began to look at many sooth books.

While looking, from a book he got to know one circumstance. The matter indeed [was this]:—There was [written] in the book that when the Prince remains no long time inside the hollow of a large tree, a Princess will be born from the Prince’s very blood. Thereupon having considered it, according to the manner in which it was mentioned he stayed inside the tree. When he was there not much time he met with a Princess, also, in that before-mentioned manner. The Prince thereupon took the Princess in marriage.

After he took her in marriage, having constructed a palace in the midst of that forest both of them stayed in it. While they are [there], the Prince having come every day [after] shooting animals, skinned them, and taking the skins and having fixed them on the wall, asks the Princess,

“What animals’ skins are these ?”

He asks the names from the Princess. Then the Princess says,

“I don’t know.”

On the day after that, after the Prince went for hunting a Vaedda came near the palace. The Princess having seen the Vaedda called him. Then the Vaedda went to the palace.

After he went the Princess asked the Vaedda,

“What animals’ skins are these ?”

The Vaedda informed (lit., told and gave) the Princess of the names of the animals. Then the Princess asks the Vaedda,

“Where do you live ?”

The Vaedda says,

“I, also, live very near this palace, in the midst of the forest.”

The Princess says,

“Vaedda, advise me how to cause you to be brought to me at the time when I want you.”

Then the Vaedda said,

“I will tie a hawk’s-bell in my house, and having tied a cord to it, and tied it on a tree near the palace, and pointed it out, at the time when the Princess wants me shake the cord. Then I shall come,”

he said.

The Vaedda having informed the Princess about this matter, after the Vaedda went away the Prince having come back [after] doing hunting, just as on other days asked the Princess the names of these animals. That day the Princess told him the names of the animals. After that, she was unable to inform him of the name of the animal he brought.

The Prince having reflected, walked round the palace. When he looked about, having seen that a cord was tied to a tree he shook it. Then having seen that the Vaedda comes to the palace the Prince remained hidden. The Vaedda having come and spoken to the Princess, after the Vaedda went away the Prince having gone to the palace went for hunting.

Walking in the midst of the forest he went near a river, and when he was looking about having heard the talk of men the Prince went into a tree. Having gone [there], while he was looking three men (minis) came, and having slipped off their clothes and finished, after they descended to bathe from the three betel boxes of the three persons three women came out. They having opened the mouths of the three betel boxes of the three women, when he was looking the Prince saw that three men are inside their three betel boxes.

After that, the Prince descended from the tree to the ground, and asked the three men [when they had bathed],

“Who are you ?”

Then the men say,

“We all three are ascetics,”

they said. After that the Prince, calling the three persons, went to the palace. Having gone [there] the Prince told the Princess to cook rice for twelve.

After she cooked he said,

“Having set twelve plates of cooked rice, place them on the table.”

After she put them [there] the Prince told the ascetics to sit down to eat cooked rice.

After they sat down he said,

“Tell the three wives of you three persons to sit down.”

[They came out and sat down.] Then when he told the three men {minis) who are in the three betel boxes of the three women to sit down, all were astonished.

Then he told the Princess to call that Vaedda, and return. “I don’t know [anything about him],” the Princess said untruthfully. Then the Prince pulled that cord; the Vaedda eame running. Afterwards the whole twelve sitting down ate cooked rice.

Afterwards, those said three ascetics and the Prince having talked, abandoned this party, and the whole four went again to practise austerities (tapas rakinda).

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Notes:

In The Jataka, No. 145 (vol. i, p. 310), the Bodhisatta is represented as remarking,

“You might carry a woman about in your aims and yet she would not be safe.”

In No. 436 (vol. iii, p. 314), an Asura demon who had seized a woman kept her in a box, which he swallowed. When he ejected it and allowed her liberty while he bathed, she managed to hide a magician with her in the box, which the unsuspecting demon again swallowed. An ascetic knew by his power of insight what had occurred, and informed the demon, who at once ejected the box. On his opening it the magician uttered a spell and escaped.

In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. i, p. 9), two Kings whose wives had been unfaithful, saw a Jinni (or Rakshasa) take a lady out of a casket fastened with seven steel padlocks and placed in a crystal box; he went to sleep with his head on her lap under the tree in which they were hidden. Noticing the men in the tree, she put the Jinni’s head softly on the ground, and by threatening to rouse her husband made them descend. In her purse she had a knotted string on which were strung five hundred and seventy seal rings of the persons she had met in this way though kept at the bottom of the sea, and adding their rings to her collection she sent them away. In vol. iv, p. 130, the story is told of a Prince, and the woman had more than eighty rings.

In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 41, a Yogi took the form of an elephant, and to insure his wife’s chastity carried her in a hauda or litter on his back. A man climbed up a tree for safety from the elephant, which halted under the tree, put down the litter, and went ofi to feed. The man descended and joined the woman, who took out a knotted cord and added another knot on it, making a hundred and one, which represented the number of men she had met in that way.

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 80, two young Brahmanas, hiding at night in a tree close to a lake, saw a number of men appear out of the water and prepare a place and food which a handsome person, who came out of the water also, came to eat. He ejected from his mouth two ladies who were his wives; they ate the meal and he went to sleep. The Brahmanas descended from the tree to inquire about it. When the elder youth declined the advances of one of the women she showed him a hundred rings taken from the lovers she had had. She then awoke her husband and charged the youth with attempted violence, but the other told the truth and saved him. The being whose wives the women were is termed a water-genius and later on a Yaksha, who was subject to a curse. He told the youths that he kept his wives in his heart, out of jealousy.

There is a nearly similar story in the same work, vol. ii, p. 98, in which the being who came out of the water was a snake-god who ejected a couch and his wife. When he went to sleep a traveller who was lying under the tree became her hundredth lover. When the snake-god awoke and saw them he reduced them to ashes by fire discharged from his mouth.

In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 378, a Prince who had climbed up a tree saw a Brahmana, who first bathed there, eject from his mouth a pot, out of which came a woman. While the Brahmana was asleep she also ejected a pot out of which came a young man, her lover; when he afterwards re-entered the pot she swallowed it again. Then the Brahmana awoke, swallowed her in the same way, and went off. The Prince told the King to invite the Brahmana to a feast, at which food for three was set near him. On his saying he was alone the Prince invited him to produce the woman, and when he had done so, she was made to bring out her lover, and all three ate the meal together. The Prince thus proved to his father, who had kept his wives in seclusion, that it was useless to shut women up.